According to the BBC News (2019) the Conservatives will have their biggest majority at Westminster since Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 election victory, and Labour, which has lost seats across the North, Midlands and Wales in places which backed Brexit in 2016, is facing its worst defeat since 1935.

With the UK on the verge of leaving the European Union, and the Trump administration’s groveling to the Kremlin, this oddly seems like the vision laid out by Robert Heinlein in his book, Starship Troopers. Heinlein got started out in his early politics as a socialist campaigning for Upton Sinclair but later during the Cold War shifted to right-wing libertarian while also advocating for a one-world government. The world that exists within his novel and as visualized by Paul Verhoeven’s (1997) is essentially a hybrid society that mixes both socialism, fascism, libertarianism, etc. The film accurately synthesized Heinlein’s world of Citizens (libertarians) and Citizens (those with the state) with a type of RAND Corporation precision but a subtle interior décor making it more realistic (aliens aside). As a side note, the film version by Verhoeven also predicted the Latinization of the United States, since all of the main characters are actually of Spanish descent yet where caste with white Melrose Place actors, thus insinuating the inevitable shift of Latin immigrants to majority-based conservatism as they’re assimilated and reach the bourgeoisie class. Though, a right-wing tradition and racial spectrum already exists within Latin American culture, such as most of the wealth being owned by the more European descended Hacienda, land-owning, families. Further, it is known that Nazi and Italian war criminals went to Latin America to hid among the already existing German and Italian communities of Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, and even Mexico.

Despite, Brexit being a backlash against globalism, shifting international power will result in new alliances and thus economic blocs. How those will look, or manifest are yet to be seen. However, the simple fact that Trump, Boris, and Putin are holding onto power with reactionary right-wing politics, insinuates the inherent fascist underpinnings to the society as depicted in Heinlein’s (1959) book and Paul Verhoeven’s (1997) film. Online pundit, Sargon of Akaad did a YouTube video with a biased ultra right “classical liberal” spin (neglecting to analyze the satire to fascism as seen in Verhoeven’s film), and I’m sure Sargon voted for Boris Johnson. Before you accuse me of conspiracy, let’s look at quotes from the book by Heinlein.

“We were reviewing events after the war between the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance and the Chinese Hegemony, 1987 and following. But this was the day we heard the news of the destruction of San Francisco and the San Joaquin Valley;” (Starship Troopers, Heinlein, p. 177)

“Major Reid didn’t mention San Francisco. He had one of us apes summarize the negotiated treaty of New Delhi, discuss how it ignored prisoners of war…and, by implication, dropped the subject forever; the armistice became a stalemate and prisoners stayed where they were – on one side; on the other side they were turned loose and, during the Disorders, made their way home – or not if they didn’t want to.” (Starship Troopers, Heinlein, p. 177)

“However, nobody can describe accurately how the Federation came about; it just grew. With national governments in collapse at the end of the XXth century, something had to fill the vacuum, and in many cases, it was returned veterans. They had lost a war, most of them had no jobs, many were sore as could be over the terms of the Treaty of New Delhi, especially the P.O.W. foul-up – and they knew how to fight. But it wasn’t revolution; it was more like what happened in Russia in 1917 – the system collapsed; somebody else moved in” (Starship Troopers, Heinlein, p. 179).

Sources:

BBC News (2019), published 13 December 2019, Retrieved, 12/25/2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50765773

Heinlein, R.A. (1959), Starship Troopers, published by Ace Books, New York, NY